Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (Nintendo 64) review

"After endless delays, Atlus has finally brought us Enix's vast RPG epic. Does it end the RPG drought on the N64? Not exactly, but it's still a strong effort that fans will thoroughly enjoy.
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After endless delays, Atlus has finally brought us Enix's vast RPG epic. Does it end the RPG drought on the N64? Not exactly, but it's still a strong effort that fans will thoroughly enjoy.

Ogre Battle 64 continues the cult franchise's quasi-real time strategy gameplay with very few improvements aside from a mix of 2-D sprite and rough 3-D polyon models. The game plays the same as others: move units on maps, liberate towns, find items, coordinate armies, complete missions etc. The alignment that played a major role in the SNES version isn't here, so you're not forced to worry about who should do nighttime assaults and who shouldn't. Gameplay is, as I said, exactly the same. When units meet up on the map, you go to a screen, assign attack weakest, strongest, or leader, and watch the battle unfold. Your control in gameplay really comes down to having units search or you modifying the different ones through vast menus. You play more the role of coach in the many scenarios, leaving it mostly up to your forces.

The game is in many ways a 64-bit enhancement of the SNES version. You begin the game being asked many Ultima-like questions like your birthday, whether you will be a certain magic type and how you will serve your king. The game has a more coherent and complex storyline than the original. You play a soldier that has always served the game's young prince. Both you and the future king are naive to your Empire's bloodlust as the bourgeois surpress proletarian uprisings and you help- through early missions- fending off and controlling rebels or expanding borders. Of course you will eventually turn to good and partake in the game's revolution. You will meet characters that will join your forces along the way, most being typical RPG stereotypes like Dios, a pompous, strong-willed dunderhead that will soon become your finest unit leader. You will also have a kind, old, wise sage who spouts out wisdom and battle info, a sexy warrior/mage chick, a lowly would-be wizard, and a character of some other fantasy-like race, in this case a Valkyrie.

Ogre Battle 64 is, in some ways, disappointing. There aren't many improvements or enhancements over past entries, and the story seems rather pedestrian. Nevertheless, it's an easy purchase for the N64-only gamer starving for some RPG gameplay. OB 64 is a good game and there is a huge amount of gameplay in it. It just won't blow away the multi-console fellow who's used to the stuff on the PSX.

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